


we're not really even alive

by MoonyJ4M



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Season/Series 07, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonyJ4M/pseuds/MoonyJ4M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now the grin feels more like a grimace and he knows that’s not like anything will ever be okay again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're not really even alive

**Author's Note:**

> title from [this](http://bananadaiquiri.tumblr.com/post/56098924549) poem.

Sam hears it before he’s even completely awake. It’s not a loud sound, nothing that would normally wake him up, but he knows it far too well to just ignore it. He’s quick to catalog every expression and sound Dean makes and this one he learned at some point of their teenage years.

_This is how Dean sounds when he cries_ , he realized at that time. Dean had years to perfect the technique, but in that motel room in the middle of the nineties it was hard not to notice what he was doing and how he was trying to hide it. Sam never knew exactly why Dean cried; it was a sad contradiction that he could tell how he was feeling by his breathing, but didn’t know what was going on inside his mind. And Dean sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him.

The sound Dean does when he’s crying is actually the same sound of his breathing, but deeper. Sam could almost feel the effort he was making to not let his shoulders shake and to not let a single sob or whimper go out.

Sam only saw his face once in this situation; when Dean was not in the room with him and Dad when he woke up in the middle of the night. He went out to the parking lot and saw him in the Impala; only an occasional twitch would break the blankness of his face and Sam wouldn’t even notice he was crying if he wasn’t already familiarized with the way he was forcing himself not to move. By that time he wondered why he didn’t let it go even when he was obviously alone, but that was just one more thing about Dean to be left to his imagination. In the morning, he would have bruised knuckles or, in the worst scenario, bruised wrists. Sam could only imagine what would make him desperate enough to not care to the proper way of punching something, what would make him just throw himself into a freaking wall like that.

He thinks the latter will be the case today. It’s been many, many years that he has one-sided conversations with him in his mind. _It’s okay, Dean_ , he would say just for himself, like Dean used to say _It’s okay, Sammy_ when he was little and pretended he had a nightmare just to make Dean be comforted by the fact that he was comforting someone.

They were fucked up like that. They still are, to be honest.

Sam lets his hand slide into his pocket almost unconsciously. The amulet is cold to the touch, as if being with Dean was the only thing that could keep it warm. He almost let it in the trash, but took it back in the last minute, not exactly daring to hope that he could return it one day. It was just so wrong seeing Dean without it that, in the first few days, it was almost like seeing him with a missing limb. It could be his imagination, but sometimes it looked like Dean had lost his balance, like taking off the amulet made him heavier instead of helping with the weight in his shoulders.

Dean gets up and goes out of the room before Sam even has time to pretend he’s still sleeping, but he probably didn’t notice anyway. Sam hears the muffled sounds of something being repeatedly hit in the distance and, for what should be the thousandth time in his life, wishes he could do something about it.

When they were younger, despite his slightly swollen eyes and bruises, Dean would be more cheerful than the usual in the morning following his crying, like he was compensating for something. This just doesn’t happen anymore. Sam knows that in the morning Dean will just be angrier. He wonders how much longer he can take it without breaking and laughs bitterly at himself because, well, they’ve been broken for a long, long time; it’s just that now they don’t expect anything to get better anymore.

The sound stops. Sam imagines if Dean’s sitting on the ground or if he’s on the Impala. He tries to remember when was the last time he had the power to comfort his brother when he was hurting and realized that it was probably when he was a kid.

He was stronger then.

**.x.**

Dean exhales carefully enough to not make any noise and proceeds to inspire again. He fills his lungs with almost more air than is strictly necessary and holds it, like he did so many times, to let the sobs die in his throat before they make their way out.

He’s been tired before. Tired enough to sleep eighteen hours straight, wearing the dirty clothes from a salt-and-burn or still bleeding in the bed, tired enough to not even be able to sleep, but he’s never been this tired. Like he can’t take it anymore. He doesn’t even know what exactly it is. Their lives were never a bed of roses, okay, but a man has his limits and maybe that’s it, maybe he reached his.

He never liked to think about the reasons that make him cry; he probably doesn’t even know all of them. But every once in a while they are there, requesting the blissed comfort of being released in some way. All he can do is to hold it as much as he can; it started as a way to not let Sam and Dad listen to him, but become his way to turn his release into a sort of punishment - because that’s what he deserves anyway.

Dean reached for the amulet in his chest knowing it wouldn’t be there; at first he would do it kind of unconsciously and would realize it wasn’t there anymore because _he_ threw it away. Now he does it exactly because it’s not there anymore and somehow he needs to remind himself that it was his fault.

He doesn’t know how that’s possible, but it physically hurts to not wear it anymore. They say people can still feel their feet even when it’s amputated and just like that he can still feel the leather in his neck and remember every detail of how the pendant used to feel in his hand when he was holding it.

When he was younger, he was still able to put a grin in his face and pretend everything was just fine; to be honest, for some time he actually believed it. Now the grin feels more like a grimace and he knows that’s not like anything will ever be okay again.

He hears Sam shifting a little in the bed and decides to go out before he wakes up. The Impala is a safe choice; he could just drive aimlessly until the morning comes, but it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing is, but in some weird way punching a wall was a good temporary substitute for whatever it is that he needs. He’s used to have wounds that hurt much more that some bruised knuckles, but there’s something in the fact that he’s the one causing them that makes him resort to this instead of something else. At some point he just gives up on punching and hits the wall of the side of the motel with his arms, knowing that his wrists would be swollen in the morning and for a moment the punishment almost crosses the line to comfort again; he knows that the pain will take a few days to fade away and until then he’ll be able to press the joints of his wrist bones to feel it again.

_I’m sorry, Sammy_ , he thinks sometimes to himself, not daring to say it aloud. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s apologizing for.

It’s probably for everything.


End file.
